Tweet
Released by: Visual Vengeance
Released on: Feburary 25th, 2025
Director: Don Glut
Cast: Jeff Rector, Denise Ames, William Marshal, Karen Black, Forrest J. Ackerman, Harrison Ray
Year: 1996
Purchase From Amazon
Dinosaur Valley Girls – Movie Review:
Don Glut is a true renaissance man and a fascinating guy. He started off making fan films as a teenager and that opened the door into get involved with Famous Monsters of Filmland and he proceeded to make a career out of writing reference books of Dinosaurs, Vampires, Frankenstein and was classmates with George Lucas at the university of Southern California. He even wrote the novelization of The Empire Strikes back! Not to stop there, he also wrote comics and episodes for Marvel and DC titles and shows along with various animated and live action series as well. This is Don's first feature length film which started filming in 1995. Delivering a great title and plenty of T&A, Dinosaur Valley Girls became late-night cable programming classic in its unrated and edited versions. Now if finally makes its appearance on Blu-ray.
For action star Tony Markham (Jeff Rector), prepping for his next role is proving… Jurassic. He's having trouble with his fight choreography thanks to his chain smoking, his girlfriend Daphne (Griffen Drew) constantly asks him for a small role in his films and he can't shake bizarre visions of a gorgeous cavewoman named Hea-Thor and giant dinosaurs. After Hollywood gossip reporter Audrey Benedict (Elizabeth Landau) shares Tony's dirty laundry on television, he tries to take his mind off of things by going to Karate class. While his Sensei (Harrison Ray) knocks him on his butt, he runs into Audrey and she asks him for an interview. On a whim, they visit to a museum's dinosaur exhibit, guided by the enigmatic paleontologist Dr. Benjamin Michaels (Blacula and the king of cartoons himsef, William Marshal), takes a surreal turn when Tony stumbles upon an ancient cave drawings mirroring his hallucinations. The next thing he knows, he's waking up in a prehistoric valley, greeted by the scantily clad Hea-Thor (Denise Ames) and a whole lot of enormous reptiles. Between fending off hungry dinosaurs and the intense curiosity of the local cavewomen, he's stuck in the middle of a battle of the sexes which has the Men and their leader Beeg-Mak (Harrison Ray in another role) fighting against Ro-Kell (Karen Black) and her cavewomen. While Ro-Kell isn't as welcoming as the other ladies are with Tony, he's about to discover that the Stone Age is anything but civilized.
Will Tony become entangled in these women's prehistoric power struggle? Can he find his way back home and salvage his career? Will he become the object of the cavewomen's desires? Might we see more stop-motion dinosaurs alongside live salamander footage? And could the film feature unexpected garage rock sequence as a backdrop for the cavewomen's scantily go-go dancing? Finally, will Tony ever conquer his smoking habit?
Don had an outrageously campy idea, ran with it full-throttle and the result is something truly unique. It's the kind of movie you watch with a group of friends and a few drinks. It'll bring back memories of watching movies with plenty of bizarre shenanigans that would air on Mystery Science Theater 3000, USA Up All Night or Cinemax After Dark.
Dinosaur Valley Girls – Blu-ray Review:
Visual Vengeance presents the film from a region free Blu-ray framed at 1.33.1 and offered up in a 1080i AVC encoded presentation that is sourced from a remastered SD master from original tape elements. The film was shot on 16mm film and finished on tape. It looks better than the previous Seduction Cinema release, that's for sure. They actually did a great job remastering and polishing up the film.
Dinosaur Valley Girls has a English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix with optional English subtitles. The audio is serviceable, but slightly muffled when it comes to the music tracks the film has.
The extras for the film are plentiful! We have all the content of the previous Seduction Cinema DVD release carried over along with new material. There's a new 2023 commentary track with Don Glut and C. Courtney Joyner along with the previous commentary track that was available on the Seduction Cinema release. There's some crossover when it comes to the commentary, but you get some real gems such as Addams Family Values being an influence for the title of the film, how the movie was originally shot on 16MM, despite his hopes of having it shot on 35MM as a big budget film, the film was originally shot in 1995 as a Playboy Channel film but deciding to go independent in order to keep the rights of the film, doing nude and clothed takes and having chances to sell a version of either film to cable television and how in doing so the film found its cult status thanks to the USA Network picking up the clothed version for their Up All Night programming slot. Don's love of Ray Harryhausen and how his idea to mix comedy and fantasy would be the best choice for the film's absurd plot and the wild story of how Don met William Marshall at a Count Dracula Society meeting!
Want to share the prehistoric fun without the nudity? There's an alternate "Dinosaur Valley Girls - PG-13 rated cut" of the film which has the nude scenes replaced with clothed ones. This version of the film isn't remastered, but it is still watchable.
There's also "Dinosaur Valley Guy" which is a 2023 interview with Don Glut that runs for nearly an hour with lots of background info on the making of the film.
"Don Glut: The Collection" is a recent look into the director's home museum of Dino memorabilia, comic book art and other cool pop culture collectables.
"The Making of Dinosaur Valley Girls" is a fun behind the scenes look narrated by William Marshall and it focuses on the making of the film along with how the dinosaur effects were made.
We also have a few Deleted and Alternate Scenes to enjoy along with an Actress Audition reel.
We also have the unique "Dinosaur Tracks" music video collection to promote a Dinosaur themed album that Don made. It's even hosted by a talking dinosaur!
There's two music videos complete with lyrics and guitar chords for the two songs in the film: "Jurassic Punk" and "Dinosaur Valley Girls" for you to get your garage rock groove on.
We also have Storyboards and Production Image Galleries.
We also have two featurettes "Mu Wang in Mu-Seum" and "Mu Wang in Danse Prehistoric" which feature the actress Mu Wang bumping, dancing and grinding sensually in Don Glut's house and backyard.
Then we have the original promotional trailer for Dinosaur Valley Girls along with the Visual Vengeance re-release of the film.
Ending the special features, we have three bonus trailers for other Visual Vengeance releasees: "Vampire Time Travelers" followed by "Saurians" and "Fungicide." These trailers start playing automatically when you pop in the disc.
The first pressing of Dinosaur Valley Girls has a limited edition slipcase cover with sexy artwork by Rick Melton, along with a mini-poster of that art and two stickers: one for the movie itself and the other is a nostalgic treat of "Stick Your Own" VHS movie rental stickers for you to enjoy! The cover art is also reversible, which gives you the option of a new design or a simple, older design which features the Allosaurs and Denise Ames as Hea-Thor.
Dinosaur Valley Girls – The Final Word:
Dinosaur Valley Girls is a movie that reminds you that sometimes the purest form of entertainment comes from the unadulterated joy of creation, no matter how wonderfully weird or absurd the outcome may be. Go in with an open mind and a sense of humor, and you might just find yourself roaring with laughter alongside the stop-motion dinos. Visual Vengeance has put together an exhaustive, definitive edition of the film and it fits nicely in their catalog of releases. Recommended for those adventurous viewers and lovers of the wonderfully weird.
